Rona Jaffe - Mazes and Monsters

Behind where the skeleton had been lying there were tiny luminous letters written on the wall.

“Who among us can read these?” Pardieu asked.

Nimble the Charlatan walked closer and looked at the letters. Then he turned, his eyes shining with triumph. “I can,” he said. “They are the ancient runes of my people. I learned them as a child, and I still remember some of them. It says: ‘Eat of the bitter herb.’”

“Is it a trick?” Glacia asked. “Where is the herb? Will it give us wisdom, or kill us?”

“First we must find it,” Nimble said. “Let us search this room and then go on.”

Glacia, proud and strong as she was, was glad Nimble had become the new member of their band. He was so calm and sure. She felt a great confidence by his side. Irresistibly drawn to the black waters of the pool, she knelt and dropped a small stone into its depths. The stone sank away and disappeared instantly. “But be careful of the water,” she said. “I think it has a hypnotic lure.”

“If you feel it calling to you,” Nimble said, “take my hand.”

That little bastard Jay Jay is a genius, Daniel thought, admiring and jealous. He was annoyed too, because Jay Jay’s fun-house tricks were so simple and yet they worked on everybody’s mind, even his own. He knew how Jay Jay had lit up the bulbs in the skull’s eye sockets, he had immediately figured out the wires and pulleys that made the skeleton fly away, and having the “ancient runes” in Hebrew was both ingenious and irritating — irritating because he had never thought of doing it. All Jay Jay had needed to get his hands on was a Passover Haggadah for kids; the one with the translation on the opposite page, and he obviously had. Bitter herbs! Here he was, hoping to make up games for a living after he graduated, and Jay Jay as a vacation sideline had created a minor Disneyland.

Everything was perfectly thought out, even the way Jay Jay kept in the shadows whenever he consulted his rules, in order not to disturb the reality of what was happening to them. All the time they had been moving about, awestruck, Jay Jay had been scattering rice to make a trail so they wouldn’t lose their sense of direction and get lost. He also had a map and a compass. Daniel took his pad of graph paper and a pencil from his knapsack and began to chart the maze. He put a little mark where they were now, with some symbols denoting the pool and the skeleton and the Hebrew writing, so he would be able to look at the map later and know just which room was which. He wished he had been the one to think of this game.

“There is nothing to eat in this room,” Kate said. She picked up a few grains of the rice Jay Jay had dropped and looked questioningly at him.

“No,” Jay Jay said. “That’s so you won’t get lost. Leave it there.”

“Let’s move on,” Daniel said.

They went back through the narrow tunnel into the first room, and then they turned left, Daniel leading the way. Kate followed, and then Robbie. Their lanterns made wavering shadows and glistening light on the walls, where something sparkled in the blackness. Mica, I bet, Daniel thought. Jay Jay brought up the rear, dragging along his battery-powered lamp, but he had turned it off to make the journey more frightening.

What a strange and wonderful place this is, Daniel thought. All this time it was right here and I never went in to investigate it.

“A wandering monster!” Jay Jay cried. “Over there!” He switched on his lamp and tossed the dice. “A Gorvil … followed by three others!”

Gorvils were stupid, soulless, and attacked anything even when they weren’t hungry. They were covered with scales, had short webbed arms, huge fangs, and a large eye in the center of their lizardlike foreheads. They were over seven feet tall, and vicious. Daniel took out his knife … no, his sword. He wanted to get into the game and stop analyzing everything. This was an imaginary Gorvil, part of the game he knew; not Jay Jay’s manufactured, theatrical prop. There was no point in being jealous; it was self-destructive. Now he could go into the fantasy on his own terms, not someone else’s, and enter the adventure of his own imagination.

“Kill them!” Glacia cried, waving her sword.

“Kill them!” Pardieu cried, rushing forward, his sword drawn too.

“Kill them!” Nimble growled fiercely, and stabbed the nearest Gorvil again and again, while it bucked and lunged to kill him with its fangs and its black blood poured in torrents over the floor of the maze.

“They are all dead,” the Maze Controller said.

“Be careful,” Glacia warned. “There may be more.”

“Indeed,” Pardieu said. “They will surely come to seek revenge. The noise they made as they died was frightful.”

Gentle Pardieu felt sickened with guilt and remorse as he surveyed the mutilated bodies of the dead monsters. A Holy Man should resort to violence only when he could not overcome evil with reason or spells. He still had his charms safely tucked in the little leather pouch he wore attached to his belt, and he had not used them. No, he had flung himself into the fray with reckless abandon, as if he were a Fighter, which he was not. Holy Men had been given their magic spells to compensate for their lack of warlike skills. He could have been killed, and then he would have been of no help to his dear companions. But what really upset him was that he had never known he had this capacity for violence within him. He had been so proud of his goodness. Pride was a sin. One sin led to another, and thus, he supposed, to his violence. I didn’t even think … I merely acted, like some instinctive beast …

He would have to think on this later, when there was time to rest and meditate. He had to pull the evil out of himself, by the roots; do penance if need be.

“You were brave, Pardieu,” Glacia said.

“Perhaps foolhardy,” Pardieu answered sadly. “I should have used my spell of paralyzation instead.”

“You used that up in the other game,” Nimble said.

Game? What game? He felt his pouch, looked inside. Where was The Eye of Timor? He felt icy cold. The Eye of Timor, to raise the dead, had been his; he had felt it, seen it. But that had been in a dream … Never mind that the spell of paralyzation was lost, but not this one … no! He had to have it. He needed it.

The others had stopped to rest, eat, and drink. They had sandwiches of cheese and meat on thick bread, and cold beer. The food stuck in Pardieu’s throat. Why did his magic spells appear and disappear? Was this some kind of punishment for his pride and his secret violence? Why had Nimble said he had already used the spell? He had been traveling for such a long time and he was so tired. Yes, he remembered now; he had used the spell of paralyzation to stop the moving stairs, long ago. It had been in a different maze.

The others had eaten now and were refreshed. They rose to go on, tossing their empty beer cans into the corner. He got up too, and followed them. I must try harder to be a true Holy Man, Pardieu thought. I must, and I will.

Jay Jay looked at his watch. It was midnight. The hours had gone by so fast he could hardly believe it. This had been one of the happiest nights of his life. Everything he had planned had been just right. He’d loved it when they screamed; it was like the screams of the audience at a Hitchcock movie. He congratulated himself for keeping the levels of reality and fantasy perfectly mixed. He had been right not to try to make any silly monsters out of papier-mâché. That would have destroyed the whole illusion. The game was perfect just as it was. The best monsters were the ones in the mind.

They came back from playing the game in the caverns, tired and excited. The four of them sat in Daniel’s room and rehashed the moves, as always, but this time they were full of praise for Jay Jay’s ingenuity, and he took his bows with no pretense at all of modesty. He had brought the skeleton back with him, and now it was in a shopping bag in the back of his closet; a tacky way to treat the poor guy, Kate said.